I’ve Been Down a Rabbit Hole

/ 2017-06-01

Hello, this is me, after a long overdue haircut. Not the best photos, but I think you can see enough. If you do take the profiling course, you ought to be able to tell me what type I am, it’s fairly strong in my face. And my blog posts are a pretty big clue, too. I’d love to hear what you think!

And then some. I’m certainly not done with it yet, either! but it is something I’d like to share. Just before I went on holiday I discovered Carol Tuttle, she was talking in a documentary called The Abundance Factor which I was half watching as I was knitting. I had no idea what her work was about – which is a really good thing because I’d have walked on by – but what she was saying resonated with me. Also, I was thinking about having my hair cropped at this point and I like her haircut!

So I looked her up – and found Energy Profiling. It has been quite the journey since then. The Energy Profiling course is free – well, it costs your email, but there’s no other cost. And as you see it seems to be all about beauty. Like I said, had I just seen the site I would have passed it by as not for me. But I was curious about Carol so I signed up.

I’m so glad I did. To say this resonated with me is an understatement (even though I got my type wrong first time around). Although this is indeed ‘Beauty Profiling’, it’s beauty profiling from the inside out, the idea being that you identify the energy that expresses itself through you, then dress accordingly. There are four main Types, and we are each of us a blend of all four, but one energy is always dominant and it is evident in the way we move, sit, gesticulate and in our facial features, as well as in aspects of the self.

Just an aside, this is not a personality thing, it runs much deeper than that: personality can be learned, or developed through painful experiences – many of the traits we think are actually our personalities are in fact defences against pain. This energy, on the other hand, is with us from birth, it is the basis of our authenticity. Because I have often felt lost, and as if I don’t know who I am, I found the course tremendously profound in it’s impact – at least once I started to really see myself. I’ve had an awful lot of ‘Oh so I do..’ moments!

I would encourage you to check it out, as I said the first part is free anyway, so it costs nothing but your time. Since taking the course I have read one of her books, ‘It’s Just My Nature’, and am just about to read another – ‘The Child Whisperer’. The second is actually a parenting book, but people who’ve read it have found it healing and useful for understanding their own childhoods in a different light.

And I have continued to gain from this perspective: I also now have an understanding of how my energies – my Primary Type and my Secondary intersect with my illness. I can see how living from my secondary energy has been a big part of me developing my illness. I have had other models for looking at this, but Energy Profiling whilst it might sound a little woo woo, has actually given me some really practical ways of dealing with this as well as raising my awareness.

At another level it’s a really healing journey regarding my femininity too. I was raised by my mother to see appearance and attractiveness to men as everything. Other women did not matter, what happened inside did not matter, what mattered was how you looked and whether men approved of it. I don’t think I saw my mother without make up until I was in my thirties! And of course I was deeply affected by all this – so much so that I went on to live out my Mother’s unlived life: I trained as a hairstylist. the career she had desperately wanted but was not allowed because you had to pay for apprenticeships. She had to go work in a bank, instead.

As you can imagine appearance was everything at work for me, too. When I finally managed to extricate myself from that environment, thanks to encouragement from my boyfriend at the time and a realisation by myself that I was going to be so very unhappy if I carried on as I was. I applied for and arrived eventually at university and simultaneously began to reject this focus on my appearance. Apart from anything else, I just wanted to fit in. And after some years in a fairly radical feminist environment I developed a lot of shame around looking ‘feminine’. So no I not only had shame about my big bottom, and my wobbly thighs, and my bumpy nose and on and on, I also had shame about altering my appearance in any way too. As I write this, I see I was pretty wounded about my experience all round.

As if that weren’t enough, to be honest, dressing myself had always been a bit of a struggle. I had no idea what suited me, I never seemed to feel comfortable in anything and mostly it made me miserable. My mother had been of no help despite her beliefs, as she was a completely different shape and build to me.

So I gave it up – not completely – every now and again I would try things out for a while, start wearing make up again, experiment a bit. But I had no confidence in my choices, and always felt uncomfortable. And I felt it was shallow, conforming to the Patriarchy, acting as if my only worth was in my appearance, not in my brain and my being. I was extremely derogatory about ‘girliness’ and loathed anything pink.

Really, over the last few years, whilst I hadn’t given up completely I had stopped even bothering most of the time. Lack of energy also plays into this of course, but I quite literally wore the same pair of earrings – lived, slept and showered in them – every day for over three years. And not even so much as a smidge of mascara sullied my lashes for even longer.

And that’s fine. Except when it’s a rejection of part of yourself. Which it was. I don’t mean I really am like my mother, I could never get up at six and put on make up – that was never my style and never will be. But being basically groomed? Well this does make me feel better. As does putting on colours which suit me, and clothes which feel comfortable but a little smarter than I usually do.

So I’ve been playing around a bit, wearing some different clothes – even changing my earrings! – and although posting my photo on this blog, and writing about clothes and makeup feels naked and exposing it is fun, actually, and even pleasurable to allow myself something I have thoroughly rejected for years: girliness. So yes, I signed up for the paid course and joined the group. And found a whole host of women with whom I have so many common traits it’s uncanny.